


The Last Night

by ribcage



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Teenagers, Bathing/Washing, Established Relationship, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, NOT BETWEEN JIM AND MOLLY, Suicidal Thoughts, molliarty - Freeform, underage but they don't have sex so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-11
Updated: 2018-11-11
Packaged: 2019-08-21 22:24:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16585406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ribcage/pseuds/ribcage
Summary: Because I have never for one second thought Molly Hooper's father died of natural causes.





	The Last Night

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: This fic contains references to childhood sexual abuse and a scene involving almost-suicide.
> 
> Remember the giiiiant Molliarty fic I mentioned having in my head from Day 1 when I posted my first fic for this pairing? This fic is basically a scene lifted from that.
> 
> I am monumentally sad and wrote this in one go tonight to vent. I'm also posting it while exhausted so if there are errors, I will probably go back in and fix them when I am not tired.
> 
> Title comes from the Skillet song of the same name. I highly recommend listening to it or at least looking up the lyrics.
> 
> Thanks for reading. Bookmarks/comments/kudos appreciated.

When it’s done—when he’s done perverting her childhood for the night—she lays there on her dirty, defiled bed, sucking in air through the microscopic holes in her chest and the frozen patches in her throat. She needs to throw up but when the fuck doesn’t she need to throw up? No, she doesn’t need to throw up; she needs to _get_ up.

On autopilot, her body propels her forward. She walks the perimeter of her bed, rips off the bed set, the sheets— _the fucking sheets_. She’d burn them right here in the middle of the room if she had any matches. She tears off her sweater, the pants, adds them to the pile. Grabs her science homework off her desk, throws the book across the room so hard it knocks two pairs of boots off her shoe rack. It’s not enough. She needs more.

Jim took all her blades. But he didn’t know about the gun. She gets into the secret compartment, the hidden box in her closet where the gun of the man who should have never been allowed to call himself her father in the first place is buried. She doesn’t realize how badly she’s shaking or that she’s shaking at all until she tries to click the safety off. It doesn’t wanna go, and she’s sweating, her fingers slipping. _Come on come on come on._

It clicks off.

Tears shudder down her face and drip off her cheeks as she presses the revolver to her temple. Everything feels wrong, everything _is_ wrong. She’s never getting into college. She has no friends left—she can’t remember why she kicked Stacey out of her life, and Jim—well. Jim was never really her _friend_.

Her face scrunches up, eyes squeeze shut as she sees it in her mind's eye, all their memories, all the times she wanted to _be with him-_ be with him, she did, really she did, but she couldn’t because _He_ had corrupted her body and made her feel so gross that she couldn’t go there, couldn’t associate sex with anything but what He would do to her— _her_ , never her sister, always her, fuck knows why—while her mother pretended to be none the wiser.

But Jim would’ve made it so sweet.

She sobs at this truth. She knows it in her _bones_ and she just wants-wants-wants—

She clicks the safety back on. Re-buries the gun.

She wants-wants-wants out her bedroom window and across the stretch of lawn that separates her house from his. She can’t remember why they fought, why they’re fighting, the past five days feels like an eternity, but she wants-wants-wants—

His window is open. She pushes up the screen and climbs in. She’s still shaking, worse now than before, all of her insides have gone cold, ice cold, and she really does feel sick—

A door clicks shut and Jim re-enters his bedroom from wherever he was, white T-shirt and boxer shorts on his slim frame. She doesn’t know she’s gagging, but that is the sound that alerts him to her presence. She watches shock-horror-concern- _fury_ flit across his actor’s face that doesn’t act for her before she begs around her chattering teeth, “Please, Jim, will you fix it for m- _e_?”

Her voice breaks off on the last word. She shudders for breath for half a second before collapsing to her knees and vomiting.

Jim is at her side in an instant, she is aware of that much. His strong arms around her, body warm and sturdy. She doesn’t wipe her mouth before mashing her face up against his chest, sobbing inconsolably, clinging onto him for dear life.

His grip is firm, not punishing but blood-promise solid: _I will never let go of you again._

He rubs her back, cradles her weak form, kisses the top of her head even though her hair must be a sweaty mess. Ten minutes go by, or maybe an hour. However long it is, when her sobbing has subsided enough, he hooks a stray lock behind her ear and swears a solemn oath: “Yes.”

It sinks into her blood, her veins. The weight of it settles inside of her.

_Yes. I’ll fix it._

She goes to pull back to look at him, but before she can, he is bracing himself to stand and he’s scooping her up with him. He’s not much taller than she is, but he’s got muscle and she’s a slight little thing. The lift from his bedroom to his family’s master bathroom doesn’t seem to put any strain on him whatsoever. She rests her head against his chest once more and closes her eyes.

When she opens them, she’s perched on the countertop. He’s got the bath running, bubbles close to overflowing, and he’s standing before her with a look that hangs somewhere between determination and uncertainty.

“May I?” his soft Irish lilts asks.

She’s too wrung out to protest, and also—she doesn’t want to. She nods.

“Arms up, baby.”

She obeys. He lifts her torn shirt up and over her head, slips her ripped underwear down and off her legs. Both articles go in the trash. He scoots her to the edge of the white marble, lifts her with ease once more, and places her ever so gently into the bubbles.

It is only then she realizes how freezing she was. She walked through ice cold grass, barefoot and half naked in the middle of the night, and this bubble bath is luxuriously warm and sudsy and _oh_ , she could melt.

She leans her head back and is about to close her eyes when she registers Jim, knelt at the edge of the tub, lathering up two washcloths. He turns off the water, hands one to her, and gets to work gently scrub-scrub-scrubbing her nearest shoulder with the other.

“I’ll do up top; you—” She watches as he clenches his jaw so tight his teeth could break, squeezes his eyes shut, squishes the lather from his washcloth. “You… _wash him off you_.”

She nods, slips her cloth under the water, washes the parts of her that haven’t been private for as long as she can remember, while Jim finishes up on her shoulders and moves onto her arms, her neck, her collarbones. Then he places a single finger under her chin and tips her head up.

“Okay?” he asks, gesturing to where his washcloth is headed next.

She nods the affirmative.

“If you change your mind, say so.” He slips the washcloth down over her breasts, cleans her one inch at a time, every movement focused and purposeful. There is nothing sexual about it. She can feel the rage in his bones, can feel it in every controlled movement of his hand. Her eyes travel up and across his face until he meets her gaze. She blinks twice in inquiry.

He shakes his head, and she _sees_ a tremor work through his entire arm. “You have such a beautiful body, Molly. I hate that he’s made you find it repulsive.”

She swallows down a fresh wave of tears, this one not full of all the ugly damage from earlier. This is the first time she’s been bare in her boyfriend’s presence. It isn’t the way it happens for most girls, but—as he’s told her so very many times before—she is not most girls. And while a large part of her brain is telling her she should be heartbroken that _this_ is the way he is seeing her naked for the first time, a small but sure warmth spreads through her heart, filling her up with his obvious love for her, so much so she can’t find it in her to feel anything else.

They scrub scrub scrub her body until she is as physically clean as possible. After, Jim carefully tugs her hair out of its ponytail, uses the handheld shower head to drench every last strand, and spends the next ten minutes shampooing and conditioning her locks with his mother’s best products. She closes her eyes and leans into his ministrations, a low contented thrum settling into her bones.

When she opens her eyes, she is wrapped up in a towel in the middle of his bed, a second towel wrapped around her wet hair. Jim turns from his dresser—he’s changed his shirt—and presents her with a Bee Gees tee and a pair of boxers. She gets dressed while he sets his alarm to Early O’Clock so she can sneak back to her house before the monsters wake and notice her absence.

The first thing he says when he climbs into bed next to her is, “That was the last time, princess.”

Her tired, contented, loving eyes find his. Other people say his eyes are creepy, off-putting. Molly disagrees. In his eyes she sees oceans of passion and a love that burns hotter than the flames of Hell.

He leans in and kisses the tip of her nose, trails his fingertips along the side of her face, down her jaw. “That’s the last time he hurts you. I swear it on my empire-to-be.”

She snuggles up close, buries her face in his chest, this time not from grief but because she wants to be as physically close to him as possible. She kisses him through his shirt, feels the shadows take over behind her eyelids as he flicks off the lamp light.

“Thank you,” she whispers, her voice raspy from lack of use, but filled with a peace it had never known.

“Always.” He snakes his arm around her small form, kisses her squeaky-clean angelic forehead. The most honest promise he has ever made in his life carries her off to Dreamland: “Until the day I die.”


End file.
